GREEN; YELLOW SLEEVES, BELT, AND CAP 



yard from the bank on the taking-off side. In his 

 book, " Heroes and Heroines of the Grand National," 

 Mr. Finch Mason, the author, observes that "a horse 

 to get fairly over would have to jump at least 23 or 

 24 feet." He was apparently not aware that even when 

 easily swinging over hurdles a horse almost invariably 

 covers considerably more than this distance. I touched 

 on this subject in my reminiscences, published in 191 8, 

 entitled "A Sporting and Dramatic Career," describing 

 how, when watching some hurdlers at their work one 

 morning at Danebury, I had asked Tom Cannon 

 whether they did not jar themselves in landing on a 

 road which ran just behind the flight near to which we 

 were sitting on our hacks. I was not a little surprised 

 to hear that none of the jumpers ever touched this road, 

 and on measuring the ground which one of the horses 

 had cleared over their jump we found the distance was 

 28 feet. 



There was a second brook at Aintree, which I am not 

 able at present to locate. The chronicler of the period 

 described it as "a very decent jump, made by converting 

 a foot ditch into an eight foot brook with timber in 

 front of it." The third brook was that now known 

 as Valentine's, the difficulty here and at Becher's Brook 

 being that horses formerly took off from plough. In 

 this first National it appears that different fences were 

 jumped the second time round, one of these being a 

 stiff post and rail, and immediately in front of the Grand 



